Lyra didn't speak.
She couldn't.
The throne beneath her still pulsed like it was alive—its heartbeat a slow, ancient rhythm, thudding through her bones. Her fingers curled against the obsidian armrests, trembling with restrained power. Her body was whole again, but different.
Reforged.
Her silver-black hair billowed behind her, brushing against the jagged throne-spikes like smoke caught in moonlight. Her new brands glowed faintly on her forearms—one a wing, the other a teardrop. Symbols of balance. Of choice.
But her gaze remained fixed on the impossible.
Her mother—the Shadow Phoenix, the terror of empires—was kneeling.
One knee on the fractured stone, head bowed. Her long obsidian robes fanned around her like liquid night. The burning mask she once wore now floated behind her like a dead sun, dimmed and powerless.
"I am no longer your queen," she said, voice reverent. "You are mine now."
Lyra's throat tightened.
